Between Love and Hate
by CreativityIsTheEssence
Summary: Having been best friends during their childhood, Rachel Berry still doesn't understand what she did to warrant such abrupt abhorrent treatment from McKinley's Queen B, Quinn Fabray. But when the school undergoes a power shift, Rachel is sure to discover the truth... isn't she?
1. Chapter 1

It was at the fragile age of ten that Lucy Quinn Fabray had first begun to think of her best friend, Rachel Berry, differently. With skin a few shades more tan than Quinn's own porcelain flesh, large affectionate, warm, mahogany eyes, and a body that was beginning to grow mounds and curves, Rachel had become, to ten year old Quinn, what a Playboy magazine was to the average teenage boy.

The inclination to slip her hand past the tight waistband of her sleeping pants, and pinch, rub, and roll that smooth velvety - and most often slippery- hood of nerves between her fingers to fantasies of kissing Rachel's neck or holding her hand, had come as a shock to poor Quinn, simply because prior to her shuddering blissfully in the quiet of her dark bedroom to mental images of Rachel performing tasks as simple as smiling, Quinn had never felt an attraction to anybody. Completely asexual

Rachel sexuality, on the other hand, had blossomed much more gradually. There were moments before gym class would commence, when the boys would bound out of their locker room and sprint past the girls into the vastness of the school's field. Rachel, out of herself and Quinn, would always be the one to appreciate the male form, sometimes so enthusiastically that Mrs. Ryan would cease from unlocking the gate that led to the netball court, snap her neck around, and shush the verbose little brunette with a quickness that betrayed deep irritation.

Then came the day of Quinn's twelfth birthday party. It should've been a happy time, and to any outsider glancing in, it certainly would have looked the case, what with all of the colorfully wrapped presents strewn around the Fabray lounge, and the ribbons and banners hanging from wall to wall. The other pre-teens that the Fabray's had invited to their daughter's party were having a better time than the actual birthday girl. They lavished, care-free, in the party food, they danced, and their eyes sung a shocked appreciation when they opened their party bags and found gadgets that were way beyond anything that their weekly allowances could afford.

Whilst all of that had been taking place downstairs, Quinn had stomped about her bedroom, frustrated about the fact that her parents were forcing her to perform a song and dance to all in attendance, as a thank you to everybody for coming.

Rachel had grown tired of her best friend's complaining, and when she could no longer take Quinn's abrasive mutterings, she threw herself back into Quinn's pillows, her mane of shiny brunette hair fanning out over pink and yellow sheets. "I'll sing and dance with you, Quinn. In fact, I knew you'd be this way, and so I've employed the services of both Santana and Brittany also. They will sing and dance with us too."

Quinn's heavy-footed pacing ceased, and she stood gazing down at the kindest shade of brown that the world had ever blessed her to see. She'd been sure that her adoration of the other girl was bleeding out into the room, because Rachel's smile had become a grin. The grin that would always follow when one of them got particularly mushy.

Quinn mentally bullied herself to pull it together, and she had with the comment, "jeez Rach, have you been munching on the pages of a dictionary?"

It was a deeply appreciative thank you, and they'd both been aware of that.

When it came time to perform, Santana had already been sent home, after a furious phone call to her parents from the Fabray's, because she'd been caught pouring a sizable bottle of clear but potent liquid into the ocean of fruity red swishing about the punch bowl. Not knowing whether any of the invited had fallen drunk after drinking the punch, the Fabray parents, Russell and Judy, cut the party short. After interrogating Brittany about where Santana had gotten the alcohol from, they were certain that the ditzy blonde was one of the effected, but Rachel and Quinn knew better.

The day darkened to night soon after. Rachel had been the only one to stay after the party finished. She and Quinn were lain on Quinn's bed, side by side, their stomach's puffed full of their own respective food baby.

"I love you Rachel," Quinn had suddenly said, although very quietly.

A soft peel of laughter bounced around in Rachel's throat, and even that was in perfect key, making Quinn's eyes flutter shut. "I know," the brunette smiled.

But she didn't. She didn't know.

* * *

It was because Rachel had not understood the magnitude of Quinn's amorous declaration that day, that Rachel Berry was no longer Rachel Berry in the hallways of William Mckinley High. She was anything but. She was now Man Hands, Treasure Trail, Stubbles, RuPaul, It, That Thing, Pinocchio, and a vast array of other demeaning names, all fashioned at the hands of her former best friend forever, Quinn Fabray.

Not only did Quinn's disdain for her former best friend range from name calling, shoving her out of the way, and just all out bitchdom, but the Captain of the Cheerios cheerleading squad had also made it a point to have a lackey from the football team toss a nice cold sticky slushie into Rachel's face weekly - sometimes twice a week.

All these years later, sophomores at McKinley, and Rachel still wasn't privy to what she'd done to deserve this treatment. It wasn't like she hadn't tried to find out either.

When Quinn had stopped answering her calls, and began to ignore her - out of the blue - back when they were fourteen, Rachel had been persistent in trying to find out what mortal sin she had committed against Quinn, but with every attempt at reconciliation Quinn just got angrier, and bitchier. Once she'd even shoved Rachel off of her front lawn and into the road.

The oncoming truck had missed the brunette's small frame by this much. Her life had flurried before her eyes - every achievement and everything that the aspiring singer had yet to achieve.

There had been no apology, no pleas for forgiveness. Nothing but the name calling which, to Rachel's horror, would only progress as the years passed.

Figuring that it was best for her health to just stay away from the blonde for a while, Rachel stopped trying. After some time, and with what she saw of Quinn's hellish power-hungry new personality, Rachel became resigned to the idea that her Quinn was dead.

At the trigger of a song, a smell, or even the color yellow, she often still mourned her.

But today was the _last_ straw! She was going to _murder_ the new Quinn, for whose presence she was _certain_ nobody would mourn.

As soon as David Karofsky's fat hand lowered the cup that he'd used to deliver Rachel's weekly slushie, the brunette slung her bag to the hallway floor, and silently took off in the direction of the girls changing rooms, leaving Azimo and Karofsky frowning and scratching their heads.

"Dude, she didn't even flinch," Azimo pointed out, kind of spooked by the girl's indifference, or maybe it was a rage so deep that the only apt reaction was no reaction.

"Yeah, I at least like to hear 'em squeal." David Karofsky glanced between the purple stained empty cup in his hand, and the fast retreating back of one Rachel Berry. "You sure this thing was cold?"

Rachel's quick - almost possessed - steps took her to a door with a placard boasting 'Girl's Locker room,' on it. She didn't register cranking the handle down to open it. In her mind she had walked straight through the weighty steel door, as if it were not there at all.

Steam from all those who were showering slowly curled and swished, making patterns before Rachel's vacant eyes. But it didn't matter; she could hear Quinn Fabray's mocking chuckle echoing at the back of the locker room. So she followed its reverberation, ignoring the concerned glances that she seemed to be attracting from all those getting changed.

She turned a corner, and there stood Santana, Brittany and Quinn, all three of them in various different states of undress. Rachel didn't halt or even slow her step once, and as her gait quickened to the point that, to her, it seemed like she was floating through air, Brittany's head turned in her direction, followed by Santana's, and lastly Quinn's.

All three of their grins fast devolved into frowns.

"Stop the violence!" Brittany cried out before anything even happened, but Rachel's ears, as trained as they were, failed to detect as such.

Coach Sue Sylvester stepped out of the swirls of steam, seemingly out of nowhere, in her famous red tracksuit, but Rachel merely registered the tall thin woman's presence as an ant on a giant's hand.

Puddles of melting purple slushie spattered and dripped, hitting all those within reach, as Rachel charged for Quinn, almost toppling the taller girl over. But Quinn was not Captain of the Cheerios for nothing. Finding that she suddenly had her hands full of a furious, flailing, Rachel, the tall slender blonde quickly positioned her forearms under the brunette's armpits, and used the seething girl's own momentum to sort of toss her off into the wall. But Rachel pushed off of the wall and lunged for the school's Queen B once again.

It resulted in Quinn sitting on her ass, blinking profusely up at her assailant, as all those surrounding cupped their gasps and gawped wide-eyed at the trickle of blood oozing from the corner of their captain's perfect mouth.

"Well... damn!" Santana mused, oddly impressed and proud of the small, big-nosed, brunette. That was until Brittany grabbed a hold of her and hid her face in the crook of her caramel neck, murmuring that she was scared.

Coach Sylvester glared down at Quinn like a mother who had taught their child better. "You just gonna let Man Hands over here manhandle you, Captain?"

As if she'd heard nothing, Quinn remained fallen, blinking sheer shock up into eyes that had once been the kindest pair she'd ever known.

Rachel had struck her.

Her sweet, forgiving, Rachel had struck her, and with such force that she hadn't even been aware that she'd been falling until her ass had thudded to the tiles, sending a disorienting turbulence tremoring throughout her entire form.

Ignoring Coach Sue Sylvester, Rachel crouched down before her former best friend, and pointed at the mess of purple slushie that was seeping deeper into her shirt by the second. "This stops today," she enunciated, rising to her feet, before storming out of the locker room as only she could.

Numerous eyes, filled with second hand embarrassment, fell to Quinn, who was only just beginning to stand back up. Once vertical again, she dusted her Cheerios skirt off and kept her gaze low, before bullying herself into looking Coach Sue Sylvester straight in the eye so that she could take the verbal lashing that she knew was coming.

The older, short-haired, blonde slowly shook her head whilst clicking her tongue. "Santana Lopez," she began, still holding Quinn's unwavering gaze, "congratulations, you're now the Captain of the squad."

Santana's hand stopped drawing soothing circles into Brittany's bare shoulder, and a smug smirk grew into the corner of her mouth. "Well... damn."

Quinn pulled on her Mckinley sweat shirt, grabbed her bag, and thundered out of the locker room with glossy hazel eyes.

* * *

Principal Figgins slid the letter of suspension across his desk, before clasping his hands together. "You'll also have to write a written letter of apology to Quinn Fabray, at the request of her parents, who were not thrilled to see their daughter come home with a split lip. They were very concerned, and quite upset that such a close childhood friend of Quinn's would behave in such a way. It is only because you have been such a model student, up until this point, that you will not undergo a more severe punishment."

Rachel's head remained bowed, her soft curtain of brown hair shrouding her face. Suspension. Three weeks. How was she going to explain this to her fathers, who were anti-violence, and all about thriving in the academic arena? The Fabray's, Russell and Judy, probably hated her now too. Then there was Glee club. How was she going to get along without the outlet of singing?

"Do you have any questions, Ms. Berry?"

She simply shook her head, took the letter, and left the office.

As soon as her Penny Loafers met with the hallway floor, Santana fell into step beside her, with Brittany on her right.

Rachel sighed, still pouty from her reprimand. "What do you want?"

"I can't believe you punched Q," Brittany said, a tinge of disappointment in her otherwise vacant voice.

"Yeah, hobbit," Santana chimed in. "Not that I'm not thoroughly impressed by the torque on that right hook, but I cannot believe that you hit Quinn. You made the ice queen tear up - or maybe that was just because she got stripped of the Cheerios Captain title. What set you off this time anyway?"

Rachel stopped right in the middle of the hallway and gaped at Santana, unable to comprehend such a stupid question.

Santana rolled her eyes, and lifted her hand to inspect her nails. "I'm waiting, Pinocchio."

"What set me off?" Rachel shrieked. "The constant use of derogatory names, the glares, the not knowing whether I am going to make it home dry by the end of the day -"

"Wanky," Santana interrupted, with a wink in Brittany's direction.

"All of that, endured on a daily basis is more than enough to set one off, but when one has to endure the aforementioned whilst menstruating, that is where things get hairy, so to speak. It had been a long day of cramps and bloating, and I was exhausted. Add to that the multitude of hormonal transactions that take place during that time of the month, and the slushie that Quinn had ordered David Karofsky to soil me with, just ten minutes before the end of the school day might I add, and I just..." She sighed heavily, before muttering, "I snapped."

Brittany looked upon the small brunette with a confused frown.

"Cliff notes?" Santana asked her best friend.

Brittany nodded, and her shoulders relaxed in gratitude over the fact that Santana was always there to kindly break things down for her.

"Rachel was already pissy because she was on the rag, and so basically Quinn felt the wrath of the monthly imploding uterus." The new Cheerios Captain wrapped the explanation up with a cute little one-shouldered shrug.

"Ooh," Brittany drawled.

Rachel rolled her eyes at Santana's version of events, regardless of how accurate they were.

Whatever, she was sick of going over the situation in her head, in large part to the fact that she couldn't recall the majority of it. She could, however, recall the look in Quinn's inherently warm, lazy, hazel eyes as she sat on her ass in shock, with blood leaking from her lip. That look had been haunting Rachel ever since, and despite everything that Quinn had inflicted upon her, the aspiring singer felt a soul-altering guilt, because she had struck another human being to the point of drawing blood.

"I just want things to go back to normal," Brittany said softly, a pout forming.

Rachel let her mind take her back to times when she and Quinn would share tubs of ice-cream between themselves, whilst snuggled up in either her or Quinn's bed. Those had been the days.

"Me too, Brittany, but for some unknown reason... she despises the very essence of me. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever learn of what I did to earn her hatred."

Brittany's mouth fell ajar, but Santana's hasty voice was the one to prevail: "Come on Britt, we gots to go."

"But -"

"Britt-Britt, we gotta go do that... thing we said we'd do."

Rachel glanced between Brittany's puzzled expression and Santana's imploring one, and like the flick of a switch, a slither of light was cast upon the darkness that was, what she'd dubbed in her mind, 'The Quinn situation.'

"Oh my gosh, what do you know? What did I do to make Quinn hate me?" spluttered from her full pleading lips.

Santana sighed, looking off to her left, and for a fleeting moment Rachel thought that the tan girl was going to show her an ounce of mercy, but when Santana simply held out her pinky for Brittany to take, Rachel knew better.

Not even the apologetic smile that Brittany shot over her shoulder, as she and Santana walked off, did anything to soothe the aspiring singer.

* * *

**I'm sort of new to Faberry, but now that i have discovered them, I love them. With having just left the brittana fandom, Faberry caught my attention just in the nick of time. I felt a sudden inspiration to write this. It seems to be writing itself at the moment. Let me know what you all think so far.**


	2. Chapter 2

"You need to handle your issues with Rachel."

At the sound of her former best friend's name, Quinn's fingers halted their task of trying to unwrap the double cheese burger that she'd just purchased, and narrowed hazel eyes zeroed in, severe and stern, on the new Captain of the Cheerios. Appetite now seized, the blonde shoved the still wrapped burger away from her, sending it spinning across the Breadstix table, towards Santana.

"What did I _tell_ you about bringing her up?"

Santana shrugged. "I don't know; I probably wasn't listening. But here's what I do know," she began, leaning in closer to the blonde with an eyebrow quirked in challenge. "You bullying Man Hands just because she makes your panties wet and sticky isn't cool anymore."

With those crude words out in the open, Quinn immediately abandoned the eye contact that she'd previously established with Santana, and sat back fully against the booth backrest. She ran her fingers back through her hair, grabbing frustrated fists of the soft golden tresses here and there. "You talking to me this way isn't cool, Santana," she countered, tone eerily calm.

"Oh? Because I thought that I was the Captain of the Cheerios now - oh that's right..." Santana shed the theatrics and deadpanned. "I am. So I now decide who stands where in the McKinley food chain."

Quinn rolled her eyes. She'd known that this had been coming. "Oh whatever, Chesticles. You're Captain because Sylvester's a bitch, not because you deserve to be there, or because you're better than me in _any_ way."

"A promotion is a promotion, _Thunder_ _Thighs_."

Quinn scoffed at the derogatory name, and promptly began to ease out of the booth, surrounded by her usual air of majesty. "I don't have to take this - and for your information, Man Hands _doesn't_ make my panties _anything_. I think you're mistaking us for you and Brittany."

Santana slammed her fist to the table. "Sit your nineteen-fifties-housewife-lookin'-ass down!"

Suddenly Quinn's face was inches from her own. "Keep this aggression up, and when I knock you back down to second in command, where you belong, I will make you the new Rachel Berry. I can promise you that."

Santana ignored the harsh breathy whisper, and brought her palms together for a series of claps. "Wow, you actually managed to say your beloved's entire name. I'm impressed. Now sit back the fuck down, so we can talk about your ridiculously obvious feelings for RuPaul. Then we'll come to some sort of agreement, because all of this fuckery is upsetting Britt-Britt, and when she's upset, I will cut a bitch to see her smile again."

"What the hell does any of this have to do with Britt?"

Bored of trying to convince Quinn to sit back down and engage, Santana pulled her ace. "Today Britt almost let it slip, _to_ _Rachel_, that the reason you behave like a tampon, is because you've been crushing on her for years, and that the bullying is simply your way of taking out your frustration over the fact that you think Rachel's never gonna love you back the way you love her."

Quinn could not scoot back into the booth quickly enough. She almost dislocated her shoulder in her haste, but the pain and turbulence did not even register.

Santana drew a dismissive hand through the air. "Don't burst a vein, Gaybray. I handled it, just like I have been since you decided to cut Berry out of our little clique during freshman year."

Anguish, of magnitude much too significant for that of a sixteen-year-old, rippled Quinn's pale forehead, but nothing but silence spilled from the pristine blonde.

"Look, just tell the midget you wanna eat her Berry. I mean, the girl has two homos for parents, Q. What's the worst that could happen? - You two becoming friends again? If anything, she'll be flattered and -"

"Tell me that we're going to be nothing but friends," Quinn erupted in a quick biting whisper. "Then I'll have to watch her parading around with Finn, and pretend that I'm happy about it." She paused to gather herself, sighing her eyes shut. "I tried!" Her eyes flickered open, a dejected but unwavering fire billowing in them. "I tried to be her friend, and be ok with watching her with boys when we were fourteen – remember Jamie? It **didn't** _work_."

"So instead of just backing off completely, you make her feel like shit about herself on a daily basis, because what?"

Quinn could not believe that she was confiding in her lifelong frenemy about the sore subject of Rachel Berry - and in a public establishment at that. The moment felt surreal to her, like she would wake up at any given moment, or die at any given second.

"No," she finally replied. "That's not how it is. Things just... happen."

Santana shot the blonde a look of sheer cynicism. "You torture the midget, most often going out of your way to make sure she's miserable. That shit doesn't just... happen."

A steely silence then ensued, and when Santana saw that Quinn still was not ready to accept the truth of the situation, she leaned in close and whisper-spat, "you fooled around with Finn behind her back, and you're gayer than a closet full of flannel. If you can't see how jacked up that is, then you're even more _Dexter Morgan_ than I thought."

Quinn growled under her breath, utterly frustrated. As eloquent as she could be, the words that would correctly depict all of her feelings when it came to Rachel, masterfully eluded her.

"So, here's what's gonna happen -"

"No!" Quinn demanded. "_Nothing's_ going to happen. You're going to keep Brittany's mouth under control, and you're going to _stay_ out of my business!" she hissed, giving the girl across from her the look of a serial killer.

"Ok," Santana conceded, much too easily.

* * *

The rise and fall of her sweat-sheened chest slowed as she settled her head on Santana's naked stomach. Her eyes fluttered shut at the sensation of caramel fingers gliding through her mussed blonde hair. "Did you talk to Quinn about Rachel?"

"Really Britt? We just got done having sex, and you're gonna bring those two clowns up?"

Brittany ran her fingers up and down her girlfriend's ribs, enjoying the combination of hard and soft. Maybe it was because the contradiction reminded her of Santana's personality. "You have all the power now, Sanny. You could do something about Quinn and Rachel if you wanted to. They're always so sad."

The blonde felt the body beneath her sigh, and then yawn. "I'm already on it, B-bear. We'll see how well it worked out tomorrow."

* * *

Now that Quinn thought about it, Santana had acquiesced a little bit too easily at Breadstix yesterday, but the former Cheerios Captain had been so eager to put an end to the conversation, that she had overlooked the ghost of a smirk fluttering in Santana's eye when she'd gotten up to leave the small restaurant.

She was paying for that gross miscalculation now though, as she peered around the dark dilapidated cabin, and shivered at the bitter chill that whistled in through the cracks in the rotten wooden walls. She knew where she was, no thanks to the black sack that had been tugged down over her head when Puck, Azimo, and Karofsky had scooped her up on her way out of the school building, taken her cell phone, and tossed her into the trunk of Puck's car.

Quinn knew all too well where she was currently being held captive. Leaker's Cabin, which resided in Leaker's Woods. She'd concocted enough horror stories about the place to spread fear and just general hysteria amongst the student body of McKinley, later banishing anybody who dared to cross her to the very cabin that she was currently stood shivering in, and they would remain there for the entire night.

Anybody who had spent a night alone in Leaker's Cabin emerged, the next day, a reformed loyal peasant of one Quinn, 'Queen B,' Fabray.

At the array of mysterious and frighteningly suggestive sounds that banged, brushed, and knocked at the cabin's walls, Quinn fully understood why this punishment was so effective. Her only reprieve was knowing that the horrific Leaker's Cabin tales that circulated Lima, were merely a product of her own cruel imagination. But with the vicious rustling of the trees, the howl of animals unknown, and the creaking of the rotting wood, the blonde's concept of reality and myth was beginning to blur, and quickly.

She jumped and released a small squeal when the door suddenly rattled. "Who's there?" she shakily called out, her panicked eyes racing over barely hanging shelves and dust abundant surfaces for anything that she could wield as weaponry.

There was an axe enclosed in a dirty clouded glass case, which hung on the far wall, and like a woman crazed, she raced over to it.

The rattling of the cabin door grew more thunderous, as did Quinn's heartbeat. Her breaths came and went in quick wheezing puffs as she glanced between the encased axe and the trembling door.

Then there was a high-pitched scream. It halted Quinn entirely. Nothing else existed in that moment, but the disembodied screams and the cold metallic rattling.

The door suddenly cracked open, and Puck emerged, his hand clasped around a weeping Rachel's arm. He quickly pushed the trembling brunette deeper into the cabin and disappeared back out of the door. The only sound that could be heard over Rachel's whimpers was the echoes of Puck locking them both inside.

Quinn stared, unblinking, across the room at Rachel, the full gravity of the situation sinking in. "Shit," she uttered, at which Rachel frantically twisted around in search of the word's origin.

The brunette sniffed loudly. "W-Who's there?"

Without further incidence, Quinn stepped out of the shadows, pulling her jacket together at the ribs.

Rachel immediately bristled, relaxed, and then bristled again. "You!" she hollered, jabbing an accusatory finger at the blonde. "Why won't you just leave me _alone_?"

_Because I am completely in love with you, and not being able to have you makes me psychotic_.

"Shut it, Treasure Trail! I want to be here even less than you! This," Quinn growled, pointing her finger at the floor, "Is that bitch Santana's doing!" She watched Rachel try to digest that logic; the brunette wasn't quite sure whether or not to believe her. That much was obvious.

"Urgh!" Quinn roared up at the roof of the cabin.

Some people hated snakes, others were terrified of balloons, but Quinn Fabray detested the idea of being cooped up with the one thing she knew would never be hers. To have to look at Rachel, and be with her, for however long this little lesson was going to take, was going to kill the blonde. She was certain of it.

Rubbing her cold-bitten crimson-tipped nose, Rachel glanced her dirty surroundings, and sniffed back some residual tears. It broke Quinn out of her thoughts.

The blonde hated that the tearful, red-nosed, sight of her former best friend was adorable to her.

"When are we going to be freed from this place?" Rachel quietly whined, already beginning to rub warmth into her arms against the chill.

Quinn crossed her arms. "If you hadn't bulldozed into the locker room and thumped me, I would still be Head Bitch In Charge, and none of this bullshit would even be happening! You should've kept your man hands to yourself!"

Any residual guilt that the aspiring singer had been feeling about the locker room incident dried up there and then, like water in the blaring sun. She stalked over to Quinn, close enough to see the burgundy shell of the scab that had formed in Quinn's lower lip. "You, Quinn Fabray, are lucky that I'm as resilient as I am, otherwise I might have snapped a lot sooner, and the consequences of your bullying might have been a lot worse than a split lip. I don't know what I did to warrant this kind of treatment from you, when we were such close friends prior, but quite frankly I am past caring. My only request, from this point on, is that you pretend that I do not exist. I have reached my capacity, Lucy Quinn Fabray."

Something about the smaller girl's stance irked Quinn. Perhaps it was the attempt that it was making to assert some authority. Rachel had enough authority over her already. "You think you can just say that you've had enough, and I'll stop?" A menacing chuckle tumbled from Quinn's almost chattering lips. "Hit me all you like. I'll take it, as long as I get to see you covered in a slushie every now and then. If the heated manner with which you charged into that locker room is any indication, you could do with the cooling off."

Rachel remained mute, silenced by the utter stranger before her. Who was this Godforsaken entity that had hijacked Quinn's majestic beauty and voice, and body?

"What in God's name happened to you?"

"You happened to me, Rachel!" Quinn yelled, the power of it causing a small log of wood to topple on its side. She'd regretted her words the moment she'd screamed them, because now she had to deal with the unwavering curiosity circling Rachel's wide eyes.

"What do you mean? That doesn't make a modicum of sense."

Quinn grabbed a fistful of her hair and chuckled mirthlessly up at the roof, before throwing her hand back down to her side. This was what Santana wanted - for Rachel to corner her into admitting her feelings.

"What did I do to you, Quinn?" Rachel asked, her eyes round and sad, her voice sullen. "Do you know how deeply you hurt me when you just extirpated me out of your life? And then the bullying..."

Staring straight past the small brunette, Quinn muttered, "I have to get out of here," to herself. The girl standing before her was a large mirror, showing Quinn what she'd become, and if she had to look herself in the eye any longer, she wasn't sure what would happen. "I have to get out of here," she repeated, this time heading over to the door. There was a plank of wood, which was built horizontally into the door. Quinn grabbed hold of it and pushed and pulled frantically. "Hello? Can anybody hear me? Please!"

Knowing that her tormentor's efforts were futile, Rachel sighed and dropped down into a gaggle of large rocks, which had been fashioned to create a makeshift chair. She ran her hands up and down her arms faster, watching the grey mist leave her lips whenever she exhaled.

When Quinn's arms finally burned out, some ten minutes later, she released the door and petulantly stomped a foot to the ground, almost choking as she inhaled the dust and debris that the impact had riled.

"You know, I cannot wait until I'm in New York," Rachel suddenly began, her eyes far away and her voice sage. "This will all merely seem like a bad dream." Her eyes then fell closed, and a flutter of a smile turned the corners of her mouth up. She'd even stopped shivering. "I'll most likely be singing and acting on a grand stage, and it won't matter that my fashion sense is a little quirky, or that I have a slightly larger nose, or that I'm religiously ambitious, or that I use my vastly extensive vocabulary. I will be celebrated. But the best thing about being in New York? The best thing about it will undoubtedly be the fact that I won't be here."

It wasn't a threat, but to Quinn's ears it sure sounded like one.

"You're not going anywhere," the blonde grunted, narrowing a glare across the room at the other girl.

At that tone, Rachel's eyes jumped open, a frown marring her slightly clammy forehead. She glanced around, scratched her itchless head, and then returned her gaze to an almost demonic-looking Quinn. "Uhh, excuse me?" she finally asked.

"You heard me perfectly."

Rachel nodded once, her hair falling into her face. "Yes, you're correct. I heard you perfectly well. But I'm failing to understand." She blinked, using the time to formulate her words. "You treat me terribly, and have made it so that the entire school, as well as a few teachers, employ your hurtful little nicknames when addressing me. You push me around should I accidentally suffer the misfortune of crossing paths with you in the hallways, and you have those oafs on the football team attack me with icy treats. You glare at me in class, you tried to disband the Glee club, for which I fought tooth and nail to get Principal Figgins to go along with, and you flirt with Finn in front of me. From all of this, I have deduced that you do not want me around; that my very existence incenses you somehow. Yet, when I talk about my intention to go to New York, you emphatically state that you will not allow me to go anywhere?"

"Got it in one," Quinn replied stubbornly, offering no more on the matter.

Having given up on the puzzle that was Quinn Fabray's motives, Rachel simply nodded. "Ok."

The implied, '_whatever_,' hissed loud into the silence.

Quinn immediately took offense. "What do you mean, '_Ok_?'"

"Just what it sounded like, Quinn."

Rachel's feisty indifference made the blonde feel like she needed to punch something and touch herself simultaneously. So, she did neither. "Flirting isn't all that I've done with Finn, for the record."

Rachel dropped the aloof indifference, peering at the other girl through a squint. "Excuse me?"

Quinn shrugged a shoulder. "We kissed three weeks ago. He wanted to do more, but I refused because I didn't want him to realize what a shitty deal he was getting with you being his girlfriend."

"I don't believe you." Rachel jutted her chin out, refusing to be one-upped.

"He kisses like a dog whose tongue isn't long enough to scoop out the remaining dog food at the bottom of the tin."

That one sentence told Rachel all that she needed to know, and she leapt up from the stony seat, charging for the smug blonde.

Despite the cold, Quinn quickly shrugged off her jacket, ready to defend herself, because the last time she'd seen that look in the brunette's eyes, she'd ended up on her ass with a bleeding lip.

Rachel fastened her hands around the waiting girl's porcelain neck, driving Quinn back into the cabin door with all of her might. The impact caused both to gasp and tumble to the dusty floor, where Quinn's jacket served kindly as a rug.

They rolled around frantically, wrestling for the top position, before the taller stronger girl inevitably ended up on top, straddling Rachel's thighs and pinning her arms down above her head. Their chests puffed in and out worryingly fast, whilst one struggled for freedom, and the other fought to keep things as they were.

"Rachel," Quinn gruffed breathlessly. "Stop!"

"Fuck you!"

Quinn's hazel eyes grew to saucepans at the foreign sound of profanity leaving Rachel's lips. "Stop!" she reiterated, squeezing her straddle around the struggling girl's hips in order to further limit her movement.

The taught tension in Rachel's arms suddenly limpened, and enough to where Quinn felt it safe to slowly release them.

She was instantly made to pay for her poor choice when the palm of Rachel's hand shot up to collide with her left cheek, catapulting her face to the right.

To Quinn's own surprise, her body's initial reaction was not to cradle her stinging face, but to clench her thighs together to briefly sate the tingle building between them.

Rachel had felt the squeeze, and put it down to Quinn's body registering the pain. "You can have Finn! When I leave for New York you will all seem like nothing but a bad dream!" the furious singer shouted through ragged breathing, knowing that her leaving for New York was, apparently, something that really got to the girl currently straddling her.

Quinn shook the sting from the slap off, and peered down into watery brown eyes. She'd never wanted anything more.

Quick as a flick to the nose, she swooped down and swept the brunette's lips up into her own. She had intended for the kiss to be short, but she had instantaneously grown addicted to the smooth supple cushioning of Rachel's full lips, and so she stayed like that, with her lips pressed to Rachel's, for a lingering duration, before slowly pulling away.

As soon as distance allowed it, another slap met with her cheek, catapulting her face even further to the right than before.

Quinn growled, and quickly dipped her head a second time, her cold slender nose clumsily bumping Rachel's as she sought the brunette's lips back out with her own. The kiss fast evolved from grudgeful bites and attempts at forceful oral asphyxiation, into a slow languid dance of two mouths, eliciting a shudder from Quinn, and a relaxed nasal sigh from the girl beneath her.

Quinn felt the gush of warm breath whisper against her top lip, and took it as incentive to guide greedy hands down to the zip that held Rachel's jeans up secure on her petite hips. "I'm going to make your toes curl," the aroused blonde whispered into Rachel's chin, which she then took to biting and greedily slurping on, whilst she promptly unzipped Rachel's jeans, and slipped her pale trembling hand past soft brown curls into luxurious heady warmth.

Rachel could only shudder, feeling like Quinn's touch was everywhere. It was suffocating and peculiar, and frightening, but warm. So incredibly warm that her skin hummed, like her solid form was about to change state.

But once Quinn's chill-bitten fingertips brushed with her throbbing bundle of hooded nerves, Rachel flinched a gasp that caused the ravenous blonde to realize that she had her hand in Rachel Berry's panties.

Her hand was inside of Rachel's panties, brushing against the softest silkiest flesh she'd ever known.

With a quickness, she withdrew her eager mouth from what was, to her, the most exquisite neck in all of history, and murmured, "shit."

"Quinn?" Rachel quietly asked, sounding a little afraid if Quinn knew how to read emotion.

"Shit!" the blonde gruffed, frustrated and ashamed. She tore her hand out of the warm confines of Rachel's panties, and stumbled to her feet, all whilst religiously avoiding eye contact with the girl that she felt she had just mauled like a common pervert. "I have to get out of here," she repeatedly chanted to herself, and with that train of thought, she remembered the axe hanging inside of the dusty glass case.

With a look in her eye that Rachel deemed highly concerning, Quinn galloped over to the glass case and drove the point of her thinly-clothed elbow straight through what should've been the transparent solid. Jagged shards of glass shattered with that one blow, collapsing to the floor in a fluttering of clinking sounds.

Rachel slowly sat up, shaken by the precariousness of what was taking place. A particularly strong draft reminded her that her jeans were still unzipped. Discreetly, so as not to startle Quinn any further, she took to fixing that, before rising to her feet.

In that moment Quinn blurred past her. With wide eyes Rachel watched as the blonde flung the axe back over her shoulder, and delivered a swift blow to the door with the weapon's gleaming end. The thunderousness of the impact caused the smaller girl to jump as she stood back, well out of the trajectory of the flying wood and debris.

Quinn repositioned her hands along the axe's handle, knuckles whitening with the tightness of her grip. A grunt-squeal worthy of Venus Williams tore from her throat when she delivered another blow, and another, until vast oceans of wind were bustling and howling through the large hole in the door.

Rachel hugged herself against the merciless new volumes of cold, shivering as she bared witness to Quinn kicking the rest of the weakened door through, wood piling on the floor.

Dropping the axe to the floor, Quinn snatched her jacket up, slung it on, and fled Leaker's Woods.

* * *

**I'm currently trying to stay away from all thing involving Brittany and Santana right now, which is one of the reasons why I was so welcoming of the idea of Faberry, before they just completely swept me up in their chemistry. But, if the glee spoilers about Quinntana are true, I will not be happy : ( **

**WTF is the matter with those glee writers, like seriously? They've already destroyed Quinn's character!  
**

**Also, a massive thank you to those of you that welcomed me into the Faberry fandom. You guys are some ridiculously talented writers. I think you're the most talented writers of any fandom I've ever been in so far, and it was your words that truly helped me to realize how epic Faberry are.  
**

**Tell me what you think.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

Everything was in disarray at William McKinley High. The Captain of the Cheerios, Santana, was out with a badly sprained ankle, thanks to Quinn intentionally employing unsafe measures during a particularly risky pyramid dismount during practice, Rachel was enduring suspension, which meant that the Glee club was suffering, and without their new queen B, the oafs on the football team were out of control.

Kurt Hummel had suffered five dumpster tossing's, two slushies, and a debagging, and it wasn't even lunch time yet. He was sure that the world was in pre-apocalyptic times, and even Mercedes, as she tried to mother him through his troubles, was not able to convince the effeminate boy otherwise.

"I miss Rachel, and I _neeever_ thought I'd ever say this, but bring Santana back."

"Screw Santana. She got what she deserved," Quinn put in with a syrupy smile, as she passed by Mercedes and Kurt, who were stood by their lockers. "She wants to be at the top of the pyramid? She's going to have to get used to the hazards that come with it."

Kurt and Mercedes shared a look.

"I wonder what's goin' on there," Mercedes mused, staring after the former Cheerios Captain.

Kurt's nose suddenly scrunched. He sniffed the air, and then pinched the shoulder of his coat, sniffing that. "Please tell me that I'm not smelling what I think I'm smel-"

Mercedes gave a powerful sniff, her face instantly contorting. She nodded one time. "Yep, those retards done tossed you into some dog shit."

Kurt gulped.

* * *

As she deleted yet another one of Finn's text messages, Rachel walked towards the William Mckinley High building. She slipped her phone back into her coat pocket and crossed her arms, waiting for the familiar sound of the dismissal bell. Rachel had a plan, and since she had forgone her vocal exercises in favor of said plan, she fully intended to see it through.

It wasn't long until the bell rang, and teens began pouring out of the building. Rachel knew that Quinn did not usually stay over for cheer practice on a Tuesday, and so she patiently stood to the side of the building, near the small parking lot, watching the crowd for that signature high blonde ponytail.

Unfortunately, chance had Finn amble out of the building first. Glancing his lanky stature, Rachel quickly ducked, not that she had far to go as she was only small. He looked frustrated, she noted, as Puck and Azimo goofed around in front of him.

Rachel wanted nothing more than to stalk over and knee him in his Finnpotent - as Santana would say - ball sack. But Rachel was all too aware of her violent streak as of late, and it was not something that she was proud of or happy about. So she remained hidden until her clueless giant of a boyfriend - soon to be ex, when she could be bothered to develop the wherewithal to address the situation - vanished into the distance.

"Where are you, Quinn?" she asked no one in particular.

As if the Gods had decided to grant her a gift, Quinn walked out of the building, Cheerios skirt swaying in the breeze, her gait strong, domineering, and athletic.

Rachel felt her heart quicken, and she felt an intense inclination to hide, but she knew that she was going to have to act with conviction in order to attain the goal that she had set for herself.

Stealthy as James Bond himself, Rachel waited for Quinn to unlock her car via the sensor that shared the same keychain as the car keys themselves, and when the blonde reached her neat little vehicle and slipped into the driver's side, Rachel pounced, jerking open the passenger door and slipping in.

The car momentarily rocked with the abruptness of its new passenger. Rachel kept her gaze steady ahead, choosing to focus on the small shrub that she could see from her view out of the windshield.

Quinn's hand released the keys that she'd already jabbed into the ignition. "Unless you want world war three to commence in this car today, you'll step out and act like you don't know me. Am I making myself clear?" she enunciated, slow and vivid, so that there would be no mistakes about what it was that she wanted.

Rachel had been expecting the hostility, and the irritated glare that she could feel branding the side of her face too. That was why she had come prepared.

"Now Quinn, I think it is only fair that you -"

Cutting the brunette short, Quinn abruptly leaned all over Rachel's lap and popped open the passenger door. "Get the fuck out of my car," she said, her composed tone giving the demand all of its menace.

Now beginning to losing some of her patience, Rachel grabbed the lever built into the door, and swiftly pulled it shut, punctuating the act of defiance with a quick flick of her hair and a stubborn, "no!"

"Did you just tell me no?" Quinn shrieked in disbelief. "Get out!"

Rachel sucked in a quick breath that puffed her chest up, using the fresh burst of oxygen to sustain her through the ordeal of turning her head to her left so that she was looking into stern hazel eyes. "I said no."

Unable to believe her ears, Quinn tried a slightly different approach. "Do _not_ think that you're off of the hook just because you're not at school for the next few weeks. I promise you that I _can_ and _will_ find other ways to make you feel miserable about the fact that you exist. Now promptly get the hell out of my face!" she roared.

Rachel simply shook her head, a confident and rebellious shake. "I will do no such thing, Quinn. You see, when those oafs on the football team snatched me, under Santana's orders, I had been out for my daily visit with nature. Having suffered from insomnia for the past few years, I've found that if I go out and record the authentic sounds of nature, and play them back at night, I sleep like a baby. So, when they snatched me and threw me into the trunk of that car, they took my cell phone, but not my Dictaphone, which was still recording. Soon after, I arrived at the cabin, and in my fear and bewilderment I had completely forgotten all about my Dictaphone. It was only when I returned home to empty my pockets, and played back the recording to ensure that the device was not broken, that I realized the leverage I now yield over you." Rachel paused, and not to catch her breath, but for affect. "Lucy Quinn Fabray, if you cannot find it within yourself to talk this problem that you seem to have with me out like an adult, rest assured that I will release the recording to the entirety of William McKinley High."

Quinn simply stared at the straight-faced girl sitting beside her. Her hazel eyes flickered about Rachel's features, searching for any and all signs that the petite Jewish girl was bluffing. "Bullshit," Quinn mumbled, if not for anything else but to test the waters.

Without hesitation, Rachel reached into her coat pocket and took out her phone. After she'd pressed a button or two, the incriminating sounds from that night at the cabin began to swish around the car. "I have copies backed up at home, hidden in places that one would never think to look, even if they were to ransack the place."

Even if, in that moment, Quinn was terrified, a tiny part of her was thoroughly impressed by Rachel's ruthlessness.

Checkmate.

"Now, how and when would you like to proceed with this discussion?" Rachel posed the question, putting her phone away, and clasping her hands patiently as the silence stretched on.

Pale porcelain cheeks pinkened before venturing into deeper crimsons. Quinn was incredibly ashamed of the way that she had allowed herself to paw at Rachel that night, and hearing it back in that recording served as a severe reminder. She felt like a pervert. Why couldn't her car crumple in on itself... _with_ her in it?

Then she suddenly realized something; Rachel hadn't put two and two together, or at least that didn't seem to be the case. Quinn realized that all she had to do was make up a reason as to why she had cut Rachel out of her life, lay it on thick to make it seem plausible, and avoid, avoid, avoid breaching the topic of how she'd shoved her hand down into the other girl's panties, whilst she'd kissed hungrily on her neck and promised that she'd make her toes curl.

With that plan secure in her mind, Quinn begrudgingly powered up the engine. "One hour, and then I'm kicking you out of my house."

Rachel smiled for her victory.

Once Quinn had pulled into the Fabray drive way, behind Russell's already parked car, Rachel began to feel the enormity of what was about to take place. She was finally going to get some answers, and it was also very likely that either Russell or Judy - or both - would confront her about how their daughter had come to sustain her split lip.

Growing up with Quinn as a best friend, the Fabray's had always been somewhat second parents to Rachel, and it horrified the slightly trembling brunette to think that the Fabray's now viewed her as some violent delinquent, when they had known her for the kind, forgiving, loving, ambitious person that she truly was. So, gone was the confidence and resolve that she'd just employed to strong-arm Quinn into talking to her, and if the quiet blonde was aware of the shift in Rachel's energy, she didn't indicate as such.

Luckily, Quinn had managed to escort Rachel up to her bedroom without interruption or incident.

The former Cheerios Captain pushed her bedroom door in with grudgeful force, slung her bag down by the foot of her bed, and folded her arms, narrowing a cold look down at the other girl, who had taken up a tentative seat on the corner of the blonde's bed.

Doe brown eyes gawped around the room, taking in the differences between twelve-year-old Quinn's room, and sixteen-year-old Quinn's room. The layout was the same; the bookcase, the drawers, the bed, the television, the computer. But the colours were different, no longer sunny yellows and happy-go-lucky pinks. Drab creams permeated the walls, only complimented by the dark brown frame of the bed and drawers. Rachel wondered where the sun had gone.

It prompted her first question. "What happened, Quinn?"

"It's called growing up, Stubbles. What? -" Quinn cut herself short to gesture around her room, almost theatrically. "You don't like what I've done with the place?"

Rachel ran her palm down over her face, sighing into it at the realization that whilst she had her former best friend right where she wanted her, this interaction was not necessarily going to go smoothly. "You owe me an explanation, Quinn. We were _best_ friends."

"I owe you nothing!"

Slipping out from behind her palm, Rachel asked, "why do you hate me?"

_Because you made me fall in love with you, without ever having given me any choice in the matter_, Quinn wanted to yell, but cowardice and pride won out. "Jamie. Remember him?"

Rachel frowned up at the girl looming over her. "Jamie?"

"I thought we were best friends." Quinn scoffed, feigning disgust at the fact that she'd ever been so tight with the aspiring singer. "If you were my best friend, you wouldn't have neglected me the way that you did when you started to date him."

Rachel's jaw slackened as she blinked up at Quinn, but she regained her faculties after a moment or two. "Quinn Fabray, I did not neglect you when I started to date Jamie. In fact, it was your blatant disdain for me spending any time at all with the boy, when you were not around, that taught me my first lessons in how to organize and distribute my time fairly between the important aspects of my life."

The blonde scoffed again, peering off towards the window.

"So you mean to tell me that you have been torturing me all these years, because you felt as though I just dropped you when I started dating?"

Quinn refused to answer, so Rachel picked up for the slack.

"Some of the very _best_ years of my life involve the years that you and I spent together as best friends, and you mean to tell me that you simply shunned me because you were not mature enough to sit me down and express that you felt neglected?"

It suddenly dawned on Quinn that this was going to be a lot tougher than she'd originally anticipated.

"Quinn Fabray, answer me!" Rachel demanded.

"I shouldn't have to 'sit you down,'" the blonde mocked the other girl's voice. "We were best friends, you knew that I disliked him, and yet you _still_ didn't get it! What kind of person just neglects their best friend, especially with how deep our bond supposedly was? My dad had cancer, and I _needed_ you, yet you were more interested in getting to second base with pimple-face Jamie!"

For the second time, Rachel's jaw lost all tension, and slackened. "Russell had cancer?" she murmured, stunned. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" she stressed, confused, frustrated, and suddenly glossy-eyed.

Quinn hadn't told Rachel of Russell's cancer because there had been no cancer... unfortunately. It had merely been a scare. Russell had bounded into the house, and in a rare moment of normalcy, he'd swept his wife and his daughters up into his arms, and declared that the doctors had gotten it wrong. That night Quinn had pushed cold carrots around her plate with her fork, barely concealing her disappointment over the fact that her emotionally abusive father was, apparently, going to be around for a lot longer.

"Whatever. You now know why I cut you out of my life, Berry. So just give me all the copies that you have of the recording, so that I can destroy them."

Quinn had walked right into that one, and it wasn't until it was too late that she realized.

"About that recording..." Rachel whispered, wiping at her eye as she looked down into her lap, training her gaze there.

Quinn sighed, mentally scolding her own idiocy.

"You had your hand in -"

"It was cold!" Quinn raised her voice. "We were both on the brink of pneumonia! I came up with a solution!"

Rachel scoffed tiredly, finally lifting her head. There was a sad and weary smile barely tugging her lips up. "Contrary to what you might think, Quinn, I am not stupid. Not even Finn touches me the way that you touched me. I have never really known passion and want and urgency, mostly because Finn never gave those things to me. But... the moment you... in that moment, I instantly understood what all of those books, movies, and songs talk about."

Heart thrumming outrageously beneath the confident red of her Cheerios top, Quinn felt she might fall unconscious. The walls seemed to be closing in.

Partially grimacing, she gulped. "Well," she sort of rasped, "I don't know what you think you understood, but it was a reckless spur of the moment thing, and that's it. I wanted to shock and disgust you, and make you feel like you had no power."

"Which one is it, Quinn?" Rachel spoke softly. "You were on the brink of pneumonia, or you wanted to make me feel as if I had been defiled?"

"God dammit! Both, ok? Both!" At this point, Quinn was visibly finding it a task to breathe. Her strong rigid stance faltered - she'd felt it slipping away from her the entire conversation - and so she used what little strength she seemed to have left to walk over to her computer desk. Like it was a float in the stormy sea, she clung to it.

Rachel watched on, concerned. "Are you ok?"

"Like you care, Man Hands," Quinn rasped weakly. "I kissed your boyfriend. Shouldn't you be seething about that?"

"Don't think that I'm not, but I'm most angry at Finn, as he's the one whose loyalties should have been resting with me. _He_ betrayed me. Any girl could have been the one to fill your shoes."

Anger at being disregarded - or perhaps it was anger over the fact that the only way that Quinn felt she could get Rachel's attention, involved kissing the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk - flared in Quinn's chest. Its magnitude overrode the small panic attack that she'd guessed she'd been about to fall victim to, and she whipped around, no longer needing the desk for support. "But it wasn't just _any_ girl. It was _me_! _I_ kissed your boyfriend, Rachel! _Me_!"

The desperation and emphasis in Quinn's words caused Rachel to believe that she was missing a major component of this story - _the_ major component which would lead to decoding the entire situation.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled a large breath and blew it all the way back out again in an attempt at centering herself. "Lucy Quinn Fabray, _talk_ to me," she pleaded, slowly lifting her eyelids.

"What the fuck do you think we're doing, RuPaul?"

"I don't know, because you insist on talking in riddles and half-truths!" Rachel finally erupted. "I just want somewhat of a fairly pleasant life, so what is it that you want? What will make this grudge that you are holding against me dissolve?"

Silently, Quinn shook her head to herself, and then the answer fell from her lips: "Nothing."

Having reached the brink, Rachel cradled her face in both hands, remaining there a good few minutes. In a lot of ways, this was the worst outcome. In her mind she'd always thought that if she were ever to learn of the reason why Quinn had shunned her, she would be able to explain herself and rectify whatever wrongdoing she had committed, eventually resulting in another attempt at friendship. But now she knew. Quinn had finally spoken to her about it, yet it was abundantly clear that they would never fall back into the bond that they'd once shared, a fact that Rachel was finding terribly upsetting. Surprisingly, the fact that the bullying would now cease, thanks to the leverage that the cabin recording had afforded her, was slim solace to the aspiring singer.

In a peculiar turn of events, both of the girls' cell phones chimed.

With a loud sniff, Rachel came out from behind her hands, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and retrieved the buzzing device from her coat pocket. She blinked at the screen, and glanced up at Quinn, who was ignoring her own phone in favor of stalking Rachel's every move.

Flicking her curtain of soft brown hair out of her phone's path, the brunette pressed the pick-up button and rose the now quiet device to her ear. "What do you want, Finn?"

Quinn rolled her eyes and petulantly punched her arms crossed.

"Yes, Finn, I've been ignoring your calls and deleting your messages. We have a lot to talk about, topics which most would not mind discussing over the phone, but being the integral person that I am, I would like to talk to you about the issue in person."

Quinn deemed Rachel's relationship with Finn as a joke, but for some reason that notion, as true as it may have been, did not stop her possessive jealousy from flaring up whenever she stumbled upon the reminder that they were together. It wasn't fair. Finn sucked. He was inconsiderate, selfish, an adulterer, a bad kisser, unsupportive, but he was a boy, and Quinn knew that as beautiful, and talented, and smart, and potentially loving as she was, she'd never be able to compete with that.

The persistent ringing of her own phone fazed the blonde's awareness back into the present, and with an irritated click of the tongue, she pulled the device out from the shallow pocket in her Cheerios skirt, pressed the pick-up option, and slung the thing to her ear, without even having checked to see who was calling. "What?" she grunted.

"It's so _fucking_ on! I'ma come for your closeted ass like never before, bitch. Do you gots me, Caboosey?"

With that, Santana's hateful voice ceased, and the line went dead.

A person with less smarts would have quaked in their boots at the severity of the menace in Santana's tone, but Quinn did not fall into that category. She knew how to get Santana to back off. She'd been using the same method for years. So, with her phone still in hand, she dialled Brittany's number and let it ring out.

When her fellow cheerleader finally picked up, Quinn immediately said, "tell that thug you call a girlfriend to cool her jets. What happened in practice was an accident. It's only natural, since she was the one at the top of the pyramid, that she would fall the hardest."

"Wait - what? Thug? Where?"

Quinn rolled her eyes at her friend's sleep-laden voice. "Santana," she clarified a little testily. "She just called and threatened me, because she _thinks_ that I got her injured on purpose, so that I could reclaim the Cheerios Captaincy. Tell her she's wrong, and that it was an accident." Her voice was suave - almost hypnotic, Rachel noted from her spot on Quinn's bed.

"I don't know, Q. Sanny bear's pretty mad. Are you sure it was an accident?"

"B, there's no way that I could've planned this. Even if I had, there's no way that I could've made sure that Santana got injured. It's because she was in top position; she naturally had further to fall, thus doubling her chances of getting hurt."

Brittany sneezed uproariously, and then sniffed. "I think I'm getting sick," she complained.

Quinn merely blinked into the space before her, wondering why Brittany was jabbering on about her oncoming cold, when they had other matters that needed tending to - namely a big-mouth Santana with a score to settle.

"Quinn, are you still there, or did the evil clown finally show up from when we turned the bathroom lights off and spoke his name in the mirror three times?"

"Brittany!" Quinn barked, intending it to be the cold bucket of water that is often used to rouse those who refuse to awaken in the morning.

"What?"

"Are you with Santana right now?"

"No, I'm home. Santana was really mad, so I'm letting her cool off," she explained. "I'll call her later to see if she needs anything. She can't walk on her ankle. I told her to steal her abuelo's stair lift, and I'd push her around in that, but she said it was ok."

"Alright," Quinn nodded, satisfied that she now had some grasp on what she was dealing with. "Well, just tell her the things I told you to tell her. It was an accident," the blonde reaffirmed slowly. "Also, tell her I'm wishing her a speedy recovery."

"I will, Q. I guess I'll see you soon?"

Quinn nodded, despite the fact that her blonde blue-eyed friend couldn't see her. "Sure Britt. Bye."

She ended the call and rested her phone on the surface of the computer desk, eventually looking up to find Rachel studying her with rare intensity. The look was intimidating in the way that a polygraph test would be to a drug user that had long claimed sobriety.

"_What_?"

"So this is it?" Rachel shrugged, almost completely defeated. "You're not even going to at least try to accept my sincerest apologies for unintentionally making you feel neglected, so that we can move forward?" she asked.

Quinn was pretty convinced that the look she'd just been receiving had nothing to do with what had just spilled from the brunette's mouth. But she didn't push the issue. "I don't want to be your friend, _Berry_. I can think of nothing more torturous."

And man was that the truth.

Offering a sad smile, Rachel stood up. "Very well," she murmured, glancing around the room as if looking for clues as to what her next move should be. "The recording will remain just that, as long as the two of us remain civil."

Hating that Rachel was essentially threatening her, Quinn bobbed her head towards the door. "I think it's time for you to follow that treasure trail all the way out of my house."

* * *

**To the reviewer that stated that this fic is just like a hundred other fics out there, where quinn is a bitch and in denial, the clue was kind of in the summary. But even if this storyline has previously been done, this is MY take on it. Whether you choose to tune in and read or not is entirely up to you.**


	4. Chapter 4

Rachel Berry had nothing but time on her hands. Thanks to her three week suspension, of which she had only completed a week of, she'd been richer for time to organize future projects that she wanted the Glee club to tackle, her room had received a move-about according to what the best Feng Shiu choices for the month were, she'd written and mailed Quinn's mandatory letter of apology, and she'd gotten the chance to date order the recent flurry of Penny Loafers that she'd purchased, because every pair were the same, and it was paramount to the aspiring singer that each pair received equal wear-and-tear.

The only remaining task to complete was her impending break up with Finn. Even with school, and his after school job working at Burt Hummel's garage, he'd tirelessly tried to instigate this talk that Rachel had informed him that they needed to have, but the brunette always shrugged his efforts off. She'd decided; he was going to wait, be made to fester, until she was good and ready.

As well as having experienced the pros of having reels of time on her hands, Rachel was now experiencing its perils. New tasks would present themselves, and she would immediately pounce on them, dissolving them like cubes of sugar in hot tea. But when days dragged, like today was, she found herself staring morose curiosity at the Dictaphone that had recorded her cabin encounter with Quinn.

She'd left Quinn's house the other day feeling like there were stones that she'd left unturned. In fact, she had felt that way much before leaving, which was why she had discreetly placed one of her newer Dictaphones, equipped with a fresh blank micro-cassette tape, underneath Quinn's bed, and hit the record button, whilst the blonde had been speaking to Brittany on the phone.

Rachel had no idea how she would eventually retrieve the audio capturing device, but intuition had told her to act, and Rachel Berry was not one to ignore her intuition.

Feeling more than a little investigative, she scooped her Dictaphone up from her well-placed bedside cabinet, and hit play. Sat Indian-style on her bed, she should've felt relaxed, as she was very into her Yoga, but she was all too aware of how tense her body was once the recording reached its peak moment.

'_I'm going to make your toes curl_.'

Rachel punched the rewind button, keeping her finger on it until she felt it was time to hit play again, and when she did, the highly aroused muffled whisper – which had sounded so loud to her that night – played out once more.

'_I'm going to make your toes curl_.'

What followed was the sound of Quinn's altered breathing as she sucked on the brunette's neck, and jerked down the zip of her jeans.

Rachel quickly hit the stop button. The noises pouring out of the Dictaphone had taken her straight back to that night, where she'd been on her back enjoying the soft but forceful sensations of Quinn's mouth against her flesh. The affront that she'd felt, the fear, the shock... the unexpected arousal - it was all vibrating within her Solar Plexus as though the past incident was now.

It was in that moment, as she uttered the words, "I don't believe that you were on the brink of pneumonia, Quinn Fabray," that Rachel vowed to find a way to retrieve the Dictaphone that she'd planted in Quinn's bedroom.

* * *

Dr. Wendy Costlang was perhaps the one person in all of Lima that knew the real Lucy Quinn Fabray. She and the six-teen-year-old cheerleader had been talking during scheduled visits of twice a month for four months now. She'd seen Quinn in all of her various different personas; Head Bitch in Charge, which was the Quinn she had encountered when they'd first met, Relaxed Quinn, which was the Quinn who wore sweat pants and a sweater, and sometimes wore her hair casually mused. Then there was the deeply troubled Quinn, who'd gotten herself caught up in a tangled web of her own contradictory feelings… the Quinn who hated that she preferred curves, mounds, and smooth supple thighs over hands that were larger than her own, hairy chests, and deep voices.

That was the Quinn that appeared to be sitting across from her in the beige chair today.

"She makes me feel…" Quinn's words trailed into nothingness as she stared into the dust particles frolicking in the sunlight before her hazel eyes, so free. "Powerless."

Dr. Costlang leaned her head to the side slightly, her beady spectacle-guarded green eyes squinted down at a random spot, in what the former Cheerios Captain had come to know as her pensive look. "So," the therapist began, sliding her pen through the metal clipboard clasp, "you're abrasive towards her in order to what? Try to regain some of the power that you feel she takes away from you?"

A long stream of silence followed, but Wendy was more than willing to wait – with a warming smile - for Quinn to gather her thoughts. This was, in fact, the furthest that she'd ever gotten with Quinn when it came to broaching the sore subject of Rachel Berry, and she was aware that she'd have to be soft-footed if she wanted to venture deeper into the blonde's thoughts.

"I don't know. I guess…" Quinn shrugged, her gaze still lost within those spiralling dust particles. "I guess I always had hopes of perfection. It's mandatory in my household, as you well know. I mean, my parents sent me here to talk to you because they found Santana's lighter in my Cheerios skirt for Christ sake. They expect me to be the head cheerleader with the highest grades, and the perfect boyfriend, and all the trophies. They expect perfection from me, and I always thought I'd be able to adhere to that standard, but then sometimes I would look at her, at Rachel, and…" She paused to regulate the sting she could feel beginning to pulse in her eyes. "I would look at her, and even though she was perfection to me, I was no longer perfection, because I was _noticing_ that she was perfection. I didn't want to be this way, but Rachel gives me no choice, and that's what I hate. It's like…" She blinked numerous times, waiting for her thoughts to accumulate. "Like she broke me or something."

"Quinn," Wendy began softly, "you do realize that sexual orientation is determined in most at quite an early age, right? They're even doing research into whether there is a gay gene. You are not broken, and Rachel did not break you. If you hadn't experienced your attraction to her, don't you think that you may have experienced that same attraction to another girl?"

"I don't think about anyone else. Everything's always about _her_," Quinn replied, barely concealing her resentment.

"But do you feel attraction towards other girls, Quinn?"

The teenager shrugged, preferring to appear coy rather than to come across as some pussy-craving pervert. "Yes," she eventually muttered.

"So, can we establish that whilst Rachel was the first girl that you ever felt such an intense attraction to, you are attracted to other girls, and may have been attracted to other girls around the time that you first discovered your attraction to Rachel?"

Quinn nodded timidly whilst glancing out of the window, the tips of her ears flaming.

"If we were to assume that that is correct, then that debunks the logic behind feeling like Rachel needs to be punished for 'breaking' you, and promotes the theory that you were simply coming into your sexual orientation. You don't need to punish Rachel, because she didn't break you."

"But she reminds me of who I really am, and I'm _terrified_," - She squeezed her eyes shut on that word - "of who I really am. Then I treat her badly, and then I feel shitty about it – but then I think about the fact that I'll never get to be with her the way that I want, and that just makes me angry again – that she would make me feel this way about her and then abandon me."

"How could she have abandoned you when she doesn't know about how you feel? You just stopped being friends with her. Have you considered that she is the one that feels abandoned?"

"You're twisting my words!" Quinn growled, fixing the older woman with her signature glare.

Still maintaining her composed countenance, Wendy softly shook her head. "Not at all. I'm simply trying to understand."

Quinn rolled her eyes but held her tongue.

"How did it feel when she hit you?"

The teenager's tongue unconsciously slid out along the length of her bottom lip, meeting with the cumbersome but shrinking scab situated within the corner of her mouth. "Shocking," she answered after a while.

Wendy nodded sage encouragement her way.

"Like, I've always known that Rachel can get fiery, and I really like that about her, but I was still really shocked. Everyone was there, including my cheerleading coach, but it was like Rachel didn't even see them. I suppose," she shrugged, "I got some satisfaction out of that – that, in that moment, I was the only person that existed in her world."

"Like she's the only one that really exists in yours?" Wendy carefully suggested.

"I guess."

"Is that perhaps another reason why you feel it necessary to be abrasive towards her, instead of simply leaving her to live out her life? – Because if she's always on tenterhooks, wondering when _you're_ going to have her slushied, or wondering when _you're_ going to cross her path in the hallways, then at least she _is_ thinking about you, and you exist to her?"

Shaking her head at how familiar Wendy's words sounded, Quinn hid her face in her palms and gasped out, "God! I sound like such a fucking nut job."

"Love makes nut jobs of us all," Wendy knowingly said, smiling warmth at the girl.

Quinn lowered her hands back to her lap, and released a small truffle of nasal laughter. "Sounds like you're speaking from experience there."

Wendy shrugged a shoulder, her smile widening. "Perhaps."

Their conversation reached a lull, and Quinn was immediately pressed with the weight of all that they had discussed.

"So Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you see happening the next time you and Rachel see one another?" Wendy's beady green eyes were tinged with the hope of a happy ending.

Quinn smirked at that notion, simply because the other woman believed in happy endings. Her smirk fell soon enough though, when she really considered what her therapist was asking her. She blew out a gust of breath that had begun with balloon cheeks, and then slowly deflated with the release. "I'll attempt to apologize for ambushing her with all of my bullshit, and right before I walk away, I might even smile at her."

"Do you think that's realistic, Quinn?"

"If I can't do that, then I'll just walk by her and say nothing."

It wasn't like Quinn could nudge the brunette out of her path anyway, thanks to the cabin recording that Rachel was threatening to leak. But after talking to Wendy, the former Cheerios Captain didn't want to _want_ _to_ punish Rachel anymore.

She was gay, and as much as she might feel it was, it wasn't Rachel's fault.

It wasn't Rachel's fault.

* * *

Both Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray were stood, hands clasped behind their backs, before Coach Sue Sylvester's desk, awaiting whatever it was that she had summoned them into her office to discuss.

The tall older woman wriggled smugly in her chair, passing her intimidating gaze between the two girls.

"What is this about?" Quinn dared to ask, shuffling from one foot to the other.

Sylvester gestured a hand towards Santana, and cockily lapped one leg over the other. "It has come to my attention that we have a saboteur amongst us. What do you think about that, Quinn?"

Quinn bristled, and looked to Santana, but the tan cheerleader kept her eyes fixed steady ahead. So Quinn returned unsure eyes to their Coach. "Uhh… I'm not sure what to think about that?" she eventually replied.

"The reason for our Captain's sprained ankle?" Sylvester baited.

"I know," Quinn drawled to give herself time to think, "that the pyramid dismount imploded, and that Santana fell from the top, resulting in a sprained ankle which, by the way, seems to have recovered nicely."

"Santana?" Coach Sylvester coaxed, settling her ice blue eyes on the shorter of the two girls.

Santana cracked her neck from side to side, clearly extracting some sort of satisfaction from this. "Quinn intentionally caused the pyramid to collapse. Joy and Rhonda, the two cheerleaders positioned either side of Quinn during practice, confirmed that she – need I repeat? – _intentionally_," – She nodded on that word – "caused the pyramid to collapse in a way that was hazardous to not only my health, but to the entire squad's health _and_ career."

It was amazing to Quinn that the moment she had been demoted, previous sycophants such as Joy and Rhonda had stopped kissing her ass. And now they were helping Santana to snitch on her to Sue Sylvester?

Quinn made a vow to herself in that moment, that if she were ever to regain the Cheerios Captaincy, both Joy and Rhonda were going to suffer a trip to Leaker's Cabin – that's if the door was fixed by then.

"Is what Santana just said true?" Sylvester asked, although Quinn didn't know why she was _asking_ anything, because it was clear in her body language that she'd already sided with Santana, Rhonda, and Joy's story.

"Not only is it untrue, but it could also be seen as defamation of character," Quinn astutely responded.

At that, Santana lost her snide calm and finally looked at the blonde beside her, fixing her with an indignant squint. "It's not defamation, Caboosey! You wanted to be Captain again, so you tried to take me out!"

Wiping away the morsel of spit that had flown from Santana's foaming lips to her own, Quinn side-eyed Sue Sylvester. "_This_ is your Captain now. Just putting that out there."

"At least she's showing more fire than you did when you let the creepy little hobbit pound on your face," Sylvester shot right back.

Santana nodded the older woman's words, smug about the fact that Quinn's tactics had backfired.

"What was I supposed to do – fight her? I'm taller and a lot stronger than she is. I would have killed her, and I'm too pretty for a stretch in jail."

"Whatever, you'd _love_ sharing a cell with a buncha bitches," Santana retorted with an eye roll.

"Actually, I think that's more yours and Brittany's thing."

Whipping around fully to face the mouthy blonde beside her, Santana jabbed aggressive gun-fingers at the air just outside of Quinn's personal space. "Keep bringing Brittany up during our arguments, and see if I don't redecorate this office with your rainbow-colored insides."

"Hey!" Coach Sue Sylvester barked, holding a hand up to incite some quiet. "The both of you, shut your food holes!"

Santana stood down from her tiptoes and reluctantly returned to her own space, facing forward once more.

Quinn's breathing tugged and pushed on her chest so that her anger was almost tangible.

Like a judge's gavel coming down, Coach Sue Sylvester ordered: "Quinn Fabray, you're off of the squad."

Santana grinned.

Quinn's mouth fell open.

"We can't have you injuring fellow members. How do you expect us to blow the other schools out of the water if our best are all bruised and broken?" Coach Sylvester posed.

"The same way that you expect us to blow other schools out of the water after almost killing us with your homicidal exercise routines!" Quinn raised her voice, feeling the gates to her tear ducts creak open.

Unfazed, Sylvester dusted down her desk. "Haven't had a kid die on me yet. But trophies? Well, look around." She drew her hand through the air towards the wall case full of trophies. "You're off the squad. Now get out of my office before I decide to have Santana here pulverize you for raising your voice at me just now."

Quinn lingered, as if her hesitation would have the older woman reconsider her decision, but when hazel eyes were met with nothing but cold blue ones, the former cheerleader saw her hope for the ineptitude that it was, and made for the office door.

She reached the bustling hallway, eyes scouring the blizzard of faces for somebody that she could take her anguish out on. But before the random arcade hand could select a victim, a body bumped her shoulder, hard, and then continued on past her like an apology wasn't due.

Quinn knew why she hadn't received an apology the moment her eyes fell upon the smug swinging of her assailant's silk black ponytail. She reached out, snatched the tan's girl's bicep, and swung her around. "Snitching, Santana? Seriously?"

Sporting a smirk that the blonde wanted to erase with a knife, Santana walked up on the taller girl, so that they were almost nose to nose. "If you think that _that_!" She pointed towards Sylvester's office door, never losing eye contact with Quinn. "Was snitching, then stick around for act two, where the big-nosed Jew suddenly discovers that the school's _former_ queen B touches herself at night whilst fantasizing about her."

"Santana, you do _not_ want to do this with me. I will _annihilate_ you," Quinn whispered demonically.

"You know, this isn't even about the Captaincy. This is about how you robbed Brittany of a week's worth of my wondrous bedroom acrobatics. Now, enjoy your stay at _my_ school without the Cheerios uniform. It's gonna be a wet ride, Slushie Face – but then _wet_ is how you like it, right?" With those parting words, Santana twirled on her heel and continued on down the hallway, leaving Quinn to consider all that had just transpired.

She hadn't even thought about the social perils of losing her Cheerios uniform. The first thing that had sprung to mind when Sylvester uttered those booting words were her parents, and what they would have to say about the matter. Cheerleading had always been important to Quinn because it helped to maintain the façade that she was this normal, smart, All-American, blonde. If anything were to ever surface about her true sexuality, and it got back to her parents, then they would never believe the rumors as long as she was head cheerleader, because what All-American, gorgeous, blonde cheerleader ever turns out to be gay?

But now Quinn wasn't thinking about her parents. She was thinking about all of the slushies that she'd had thrust upon Rachel in the past, and at the notion that she'd soon be made to suffer the same fate, she developed a new found respect for her former best friend.

* * *

**I hope that this chapter worked in the way that I intended it to. I'm sure you guys will tell me if it didn't lol. Thanks for all of the reviews this far.** **Believe it or not, they have somewhat shaped my plan for this story, so thank you for that. Updates will be slower from now, as I go back to my boring ass job tomorrow :( But, as I told a previous reviewer: that doesn't mean that I won't be jotting down ideas in my notepad, and telling customers to wait whilst I do so. Tell me what you think.**

**Ps: Backbone!Rachel is smoking to me too, haje ; )  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Quinn Fabray hadn't been to school for two days now. Each of those two mornings she had awoken to visions of Santana waiting just outside of the school building for her, so that she could personally deliver the former cheerleader's very first slushie.

Out of concern, Judy Fabray had popped her head inside of her daughter's room to find out why the teenager wasn't up and lavishing her body with suds in the shower yet, and Quinn had scrunched her face in wince, feigning menstrual cramps.

She'd almost hummed her consent when her mother's expression had softened to sympathy, and the words, "Ok. Well stay home and relax. I'll get you the hot water bottle," had fallen from her lips.

So Quinn did as she was told, even opening up a tampon and dropping its wrapper into the bathroom bin so that it was easily visible, but she could not relax. Santana needed to be dealt with, and promptly. But how? She thought about the time that Santana had cheated on that test, but proving that now would be next to impossible, not to mention that the teacher who taught that class was an egotist, and would fight her tooth and nail to claim that it was _his_ glorious teaching methods that had allowed Santana to up her grades. The teachers, and various other figures of authority, at McKinley High were often as juvenile as the students themselves.

Then Noah, 'Puck,' Puckerman suddenly sprang into Quinn's mind. She thought that if she could perhaps latch onto him in some way, then his popularity would keep her status afloat, despite the fact that she could no longer wield the power that her Cheerios uniform had previously afforded her. If she was seen to be with him, then Santana couldn't have her slushied. Noah Puckerman was a sleazy idiot, but he wasn't as simple as Finn Hudson, and he would never allow his 'woman' the treatment that Finn had allowed Rachel to endure – sometimes at the hands of the giant's very own teammates.

Other than scheming to get Puck to 'be with her,' Quinn could not think of anything else that would salvage her status and simultaneously keep Santana at bay, other than appearing before the new Cheerios Captain and grovelling for forgiveness, and grovelling was not something that Quinn Fabray ever partook in. Her iron-clad pride, she'd learned from Russell Fabray himself.

The humming of her phone suddenly vibrated against her creamy inside thigh, just below where her black sleep shorts ended. She blinked down at it with hazel eyes that were glazed over with the evidence of her mind's previous absence, before collecting it up into her hand, and opening up the message.

_Where you at bitch?_

_S_

Just as soon as Quinn had read the terse text, the very device that was clutched in her hand began to pulsate as well as ring, Santana's number flashing on the screen.

Figuring that things between herself and Santana couldn't disintegrate much further, and that the only course left was up, the casually dressed blonde thumbed the pick-up option, expelling what tension she could with the release of a long stream of breath. She then lifted the phone to her ear, and silently awaited Santana's tirade.

"Bitch, you there?"

"What do you want, Santana?"

"What, are you hiding out at home 'cause you're scared I've got the entire football team lined up, ready to pelt you with slushies?"

Quinn winced at the thought, almost physically feeling the icy bite that many had described when talking about the slushie experience. "I'm sick," she simply responded, tone completely devoid of any emotion.

A scoff could be heard on the other end, and Quinn could picture Santana rolling her eyes as if she were right in front of her. "Just so you know, I'm only calling because Britt's making me…"

Following that, there was some minor turbulence, along with a few indignant hushed whispers. It prompted Quinn's imagination into performing scenes of Brittany scolding Santana, and telling her to be nicer, something that occurred quite regularly.

At times like this, Quinn would usually throw in a quip about how whipped Santana was, but given the current precariousness of their relationship, the former cheerleader bit her tongue, remaining mute until sassy tan girl's voice barrelled back into her ear: "I still wants to put you through a wall for what you did to me, but I figure getting you kicked off the squad is a lesson in and of itself, for now, so go get your tickets refunded. Act two's been cancelled; I'm not gonna say anything to your little Jewish princess -"

"She was never gonna say anything, Q," Brittany's less than impressed voice suddenly took over. "She was just mad, and I was sick, so I wasn't there to -"

The turbulence returned, and despite the current state of her friendship with the girls on the other end of the line, Quinn chuckled at their rapport, albeit very quietly.

"Whose side are you on, Britt?" came Santana's indignation, quiet and muffled, like a hand had been thrown over the speakerphone to keep out prying ears. "Quit snatching the phone."

"Would you rather I snatch your cute little ass instead?"

"Britt!" Quinn heard Santana draw out in whiney complaint. "I'm tryin'a handle business here."

"I've got something I want you to handle."

Not even bothering to cover her phone anymore - Quinn knew because sounds were now entering her pale ear crisp and unencumbered - Santana chuckled, later cutting her mirth short to say, "you're lucky Britt loves you as much as she does, or maybe it's 'cause she's still hoping you'll let us rag-tag that ass in a threesome - but whatever."

Quinn slowly quirked a disturbed eyebrow at that.

"Britt wants you to come to Breadstix with us after school, and if I gots anything to do with it, you're buying. And I've purposely not eaten anything _all_ day, just so that I can get _your_ money's worth."

Quinn recognized an olive branch when one was being presented. She'd been offered enough of them during her reign as McKinley's queen B, not that she'd ever accepted any of them, figuring it much more fun to continue her wars with her peasants. With those that mattered backing her every request, it wasn't like she could ever lose. But being as smart as she was, she was going to accept the one that Santana was extending out towards her, even if said olive branch was cloaked with bitchy disdain and tenuous forgiveness.

"I'll be sure to raid my piggy bank," Quinn quipped, voice calm and completely incongruent with the relieved smile working her facial features.

* * *

"I invited you here, Finn Hudson, to inform you that I no longer feel the inclination - and haven't been feeling it for quite some time - to continue on with the farce that our relationship has clearly become." Staring across the Breadstix table at the blank-faced boy, Rachel punctuated her declaration with a stubborn affirmative nod.

Finn frowned, the flickering of a grimace coating his features. "Wait, what?"

"I no longer want to be in a relationship with you, when you feel it necessary to go around kissing other girls - and don't bother trying to deny your unfaithfulness, as I am certain that you have in fact been unfaithful," she said, remembering Quinn's very true comment about the boy's questionable kissing techniques.

"But Rachel -"

"No Finn," she cut him off, lifting a preventative palm in the air. She simply did not want to hear it, and with the way that he had just whined her name, she could tell that the tall oafish boy had been about to pelt her with every excuse under the sun.

"Who have I kissed? - No one, that's who," he grunted quietly, clearly becoming angry. "Who's filling your head with these lies? Kurt? Mercedes?" The fingers of his one hand fisted atop the table's surface, the blood from his whitening knuckles pouring into his face. "Who?"

As if God wished to showcase his sense of humor, the Breadstix entrance doors swished open, a tame draft following in behind Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez, and Brittany Pierce as they, oblivious to Rachel's gaze, made their way to a table far in the back.

In what was nothing but feigned interest, Rachel followed the table coaster's rippled edge with her fingertip, feeling her heart begin to gallop as she recalled how Quinn had slid a forceful hand down into her panties. Rachel had been thinking about the incident a lot, dwelling in the frantic events that had taken place both before and after.

The simple fact of the matter was that when faced with a lull in her day, Rachel's mind always raced to the Pandora's Box of questions and feelings that Quinn's '_assault_' had invoked, and last night, whilst she'd been in bed allowing the sounds of nature to gently coax her away from the conscious world, Rachel had fleetingly conceived of the notion that perhaps her former best friend was attracted to her, and had been for some time. It had been at that exact moment that sleep had grabbed her and tugged her deep under into a murky silent existence, where she and Quinn had devoured one another's Sapphic virginity.

"Rachel!" Finn's gruff tone snatched the brunette's awareness back to the here and now, prompting her to lift her far away eyes up from the coaster that her finger was tracing, and meet his gaze.

"It's over, Finn," were the only words she had to offer him.

Meanwhile, at the back of the restaurant, Santana had just fixed Quinn with a pointed look, before making a show of picking up the menu. "Hmm." She ran her eyes down the list of dishes. "What's the most expensive thing on here?" she mused aloud.

Making a point to ignore Santana's blatant antagonism, Quinn cupped the yawn that suddenly seemed to seize hold of her mouth, and then adjusted the scarf that was wound snug around her neck, before she gently elbowed Brittany, who - for some reason - had slipped into the seat beside her and not Santana.

Without so much as a facial twitch, Brittany playfully nudged Quinn back. So naturally - and whilst allowing a small smirk to mold her lips - the blonde retaliated.

In her peripheral vision, Santana sensed the minor jolts that appeared to be rippling throughout the two girls sat opposite her. She instantly released the menu, letting the rather large folded card fall on its back as she squinted tight suspicion her girlfriend. "If Quinn has her hand between your legs, tell me now so that I can beat the gay out of her fingers."

"Sanny," Brittany whined, soft but scolding, yet Santana's glare did not relent.

It was quite apparent, to Quinn, that Santana was whole-heartedly serious, and so she rolled her hazel eyes, knowing where the real issue lay. "Look _Satan_, what happened in practice was an accident. Screw Rhonda and Joy. They've been trying to get between the three of us for years, and with you getting me kicked off of the squad, it seems like they've finally succeeded. Face it; they played you like a cheap, poorly thought out, videogame." The former cheerleader arched the perfection that was her eyebrow, challenging the girl across from her.

"Wait, Quinn's fingers are gay too?" Brittany suddenly asked, lifting her own fingers so that she could inspect them for answers.

Not caring to address her girlfriend's question right now, for there were currently more pressing matters at hand, Santana held eyes with Quinn in a stare-off that went on for thirty seconds or so.

"It's true, Santana. I'm hardly going to risk something as important as your physical health just so that I can be Captain again," Quinn lied, knowing that the upkeep of her social status depended on a flawless performance.

Santana did nothing to conceal her cynical scoff. "Have you forgotten that it's me you're talking to now, Gaybray?"

"_Keep_ your voice down!" Quinn hissed, flitting her panicked glance around the restaurant to secure that nobody had heard Santana's crass little nickname.

"Whatever, _Quinnsecure_. We can be the best of frenemies from here on out, or you can cross me. But rest easy with the knowledge that you _don't_ wants it with me. Clear?" Santana shot the blonde the same challenging eyebrow that she'd received mere minutes prior.

Quinn granted her a stiff reluctant nod, but not without adding, "that's fine. But stay out of my business, especially when it comes to Berry. Clear?"

"Bitch, that's perfect. I didn't wanna get involved in the first damn place. But you either quit shitting all over the hobbit, or I'll be forced to step in again." With a sense of finality, Santana shrugged her one shoulder up to her ear, and then let it fall again, like her interference simply couldn't be helped should Quinn fail to adhere to the stipulation.

"I was the one who asked San to do something about you and Rachel," Brittany quietly admitted, feeling somewhat guilty for the mess that her request had caused. "It makes my eyes feel like they need to pee when I think about how sad you two are. I just wanted things to be like old times, when we were all friends." She smiled sadly across at Quinn, who had her eyes downcast as buckets of her own guilt fled through her veins.

"I was never friends with Pinocchio. Let's just set that straight," Santana put in, though nobody believed a word of it.

Even the menu was looking at her sideways.

A sudden ruckus caused all three girls to crane their necks.

A raised voice, the shattering of a plate, and the quick clickity-clack of heels crescendoed within their earshot. They all shared a look to silently communicate their mutual familiarity with the first raised voice, as well as the second much more articulate and feminine one.

"Finn and Rachel," Quinn registered aloud, knowing only too well what a Finchel argument sounded like. She, as well as the rest of the student body at McKinley, had been privy to enough of them to know the triggers, the soothes, and everything in-between.

"Yes, well your kisses are so appalling that I've often wondered if you were a Canine in a past life!" Rachel hollered up at her now ex-boyfriend, fists adorably balled at her sides, if Quinn's eyes were serving her correctly.

A waiter, wielding a dustpan and brush, emerged from the kitchen, and with a little direction from a helpful customer, he raced over to the plate that had shattered upon impact with the floor, quickly crouching to sweep at the mess.

Finn stepped around the crouched man, so that he could loom over the small but fiery brunette. "Well at least my nose doesn't arrive someplace _five_ days before the rest of my body does!"

Rachel lost her tiptoed stance, and shrunk back down to the soles of her shoes, clearly bitten by the longstanding insult. Her bottom lip began to tremble, much to Finn's satisfaction, but a tearful sniff from the aspiring singer kept the tears at bay.

"Hey, Michael Myers," Santana called out from behind the tall angry boy.

Quinn swiftly appeared out from behind her, arching a questioning eyebrow. "Michael Myers?"

"Yeah, because the creepy blank stare that he's always wearing reminds us of the _Halloween_ mask. We came up with it last night," Brittany provided with a shrug, as she sauntered up alongside her girlfriend.

Finn span around, meeting the three girls with the same scowl that he'd just been treating Rachel to. "Just leave us alone!" he growled, clearly not in the mood for the Hispanic girl's smart mouth. "This has nothing to do with you."

Rachel caught Quinn's eye and immediately folded her arms, turning away in what most would categorize as petulance. Her current argument with Finn was somewhat the hazel-eyed majestic blonde's fault too, and as much as Rachel tried to reinforced the fact that it was Finn who had betrayed her, she couldn't help the rage that she was feeling for her former best friend in that moment.

"It has something to do with me though, right?" Quinn guessed.

All eyes, even those belonging to customers that should've been minding their own business, skated to the suave honey-voiced blonde.

Realization was quick to sparkle in Finn's eyes, and just like that Quinn instantly became his new target. He stalked up to her, seeking to loom over her like he'd loomed over Rachel, but Quinn's ominously narrowed glare, and the palm that she used to shove him in the chest taught him better. "This isn't _Halloween_, but I can be Jamie Lee Curtis and be the one to end your spree if you want to take it there."

"Priceless," Santana praised the former cheerleader's quickness, unable to hold back her amused smirk.

"What did you tell Rachel, huh?" Finn barked down at an unfazed Quinn, whose bored gaze was pointedly fixed behind him, like he was completely insignificant even when at his most animated. "You're just trying to break us up because you're a cold, ugly, unhappy person inside, and nothing gives you more pleasure than seeing other people as miserable as you are!"

"Well damn," Santana muttered to herself, because Finn? He was kind of spot on.

"How ugly was I to you when you were trying to slip your clumsy overgrown hands into my bra?" Quinn countered, not at all having taken well to the attack on her personality.

Panicking, Finn threw an unsure look back at Rachel.

Quinn rolled her eyes at his general stupidity, because – Jesus – he was such a dumbass! It was infuriating, not to mention that this was who Rachel had lowered herself to be with. "God, for someone named Finn, you'd think you'd have even just a little bit of finesse about you, but no. You're a complete fumbling klutz."

Rachel found herself wincing at the details of Finn's adultery, before she decided that she wasn't going to subject herself to any more of the situation. She'd achieved what she'd set out to achieve. She'd broken up with Finn Hudson, perhaps not as succinctly as she would have preferred, but she'd done it.

On that note, her small heels knocked a hasty path all the way out of the restaurant's double doors.

At the slightly open-mouthed realization that she'd just unintentionally rubbed Finn's adultery in Rachel's face, Quinn Fabray deduced that she, herself, was the dumbass.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it.**


	6. Chapter 6

Fleeing the Breadstix restaurant, Quinn was quick on Rachel's heels, and when she eventually drew within touching distance, she threw her arm out, coiled determined porcelain fingers around the brunette's forearm, and swung her around.

The aspiring singer's shiny brown tresses lifted, fanning through the air prettily with the power of the former cheerleader's tug.

"What?" Rachel immediately yelled in her tormentor's face. "That wasn't enough?" she asked, slinging a dramatic hand out at the restaurant's double doors. "You've come to regale me with the rest of the sordid details concerning how you seduced my boyfriend?" – She fast squeezed her glossy mahogany eyes shut at her faux-pas, before promptly correcting herself with a frustrated stomp of the foot. "_Ex_-boyfriend!"

Noting the tearful quiver of Rachel's nostrils, Quinn tugged her pale fingers back through her own golden hair, and sighed shudderingly, feeling a much more intense potency of the tension that always plagued her, whenever Rachel was near, seep into her muscles. This was it – a marking for the history books. This was going to be the day that Lucy Quinn Fabray apologized to Rachel Barbra Berry.

"I cannot believe that you have done this to me, Quinn - then again, it's not like I have any reason to be surprised." Rachel chuckled tearfully, her shoulders heaving up in a shrug before sinking hopelessly. "Finn was one of the _only_ people that I had, and in your cruel, relentless, vendetta against me, you have assisted in taking him away!"

Quinn frowned, blinking down over and over at random spots in the asphalt, as she tried to get a grasp on the anger that seemed to be accelerating within her, because this was _not_ how this was supposed to be playing out. Just like she'd told Dr. Wendy Costlang; this was supposed to end in a smile, like it had time and time again in her – perhaps naïve – mind's eye.

"Well," the smaller girl spoke up, bringing her palms together in a dramatic smattering of resentful applause, "I hope that you feel as though you have accomplished something."

"Finn's a fucking retard!" Quinn erupted, the sudden explosion eliciting a small flinch and a silenced gulp from the brunette. "He's completely useless. _Stop_ throwing a fit over _him_; _I_ did you a favor, do you hear me?" Her narrowed glare was fashioned so that the aspiring singer would feel that she had no other choice but to acquiesce under it.

But Rachel, being Rachel, was undeterred.

Instead of cowering, like so many others who'd been unfortunate enough to fall prey to the blonde's cold gaze, she gingerly placed her palm to her chest with a watery sniff, and feigned remembrance. "Where are my manners?" She darted her gaze all around theatrically, pretending to look for those pesky manners, before abruptly gesturing to Quinn's red and black heels. "Here, allow me to kiss your shoes by way of both an apology and my sincerest gratitude." Finished, Rachel then pointedly folded her arms, making no effort whatsoever to carry out the action.

"Stop!" Quinn snapped, letting her still hair-bound hand fall back to her side in an action that left certain strands of her side-fringe mussed. "Quit copping that damn attitude with me! _Boy_ _boobs_ verbally attacked me in there, so I defended myself! It wasn't intended to be a side dig to you!"

Rachel rolled her sunken red-rimmed eyes, her angular jaw visibly clenching and unclenching. "Sure it wasn't, and I will _cop_," she mocked Quinn's voice with a disrespectful dance of the neck, "whichever attitude that I see fit to with you."

Many may have deemed her timing strange, but Quinn couldn't help but _really_ notice Rachel's attire just then; the subtle but very effective make-up, the sinfully short flare of her skirt, the - dare she think it - stylish black heels that gloved Rachel's feminine feet where Penny Loafers usually resided. They were break-up clothes, a bitter way of showing an ex the fabulousness that they'd just lost. Even though Quinn had never known the serenity of dating Rachel Berry, she still felt the sting that had been intended for Finn, because Rachel was simply stunning, making her borderline torturous to look at.

So, in an effort to maintain her sanity, Quinn averted her greedy hazel eyes up to the birds flying, so free, from rooftop to rooftop - anything to elude the constant reminder that she'd never be the one that Rachel would ever seek out her love, comfort, orgasms, warmth, security, and companionship from.

"If your intention was not to rub salt in the wound, then why did you feel it necessary to follow me out here?" Rachel asked, and Quinn could tell, from the way that the shorter girl's stance had become slightly combative, that the aspiring singer was expecting a cruel answer from her.

_I just wanted to say sorry_, Quinn thought, her frantically darting eyes beginning to sting.

Having grown bored with waiting for an answer, Rachel lifted her eyebrows and jutted her face out at the blonde; wide and pressing brown eyes demanding a response. "Well?"

"I... I think it's time that I..." Quinn's paused, huffing out a breath born out of sheer frustration. Her throat slowly revolved beneath the creamy flesh of her neck, as she gulped down the frog seemingly lodged within it.

It was two simple words.

I'm sorry.

Why was it so difficult?

It was then that she realized just how long she'd been stuck on a setting of vitriol where Rachel was concerned; so long that dealing with the fiery brunette in any other manner felt unnatural. A simple apology, and due to the fact that Rachel was involved, the blonde's throat adamantly claimed to not know what one was.

Involving not one morsel of mirth, Quinn chuckled quiet bitterness down at herself, because during her session with Wendy, apologizing to Rachel had seemed like it would be an easier feat. Not easy, but easier.

Figuring that it was time to dig deep and woman up, she bullied herself into looking Rachel directly in her face. The beauty there was staggering, capable of stealing words, hastening the heart, and taxing the rigidity from even the sturdiest pair of legs, whilst managing to get away with all of it.

Quinn inhaled a large breath, and released it again. "I'm sorry," she finally offered, so quietly that the tame breeze almost took it away.

Momentarily stunned by the only apology that she'd ever received from her former best friend - since the bullying had started, anyway - Rachel's arms fell unfolded and her mouth fell unhinged...

But given the chance for her mind to gallop with everything that she knew about Quinn Fabray's ability to manipulate and scheme, Rachel was certain that she knew what was really going on.

With the dawning of her realization, her eyes squinted to suspicious slits, and she spat, "you're not sorry, Quinn. You're just terrified that I'll take those awful things that you said as a breach of our agreement to be civil to one another, and release the recording that I have of you forcing your disgusting hand into my panties!"

At the very sound of those words, something inside of Quinn shattered, like the falling of shelves built upon one another. The cursed sensation that it caused within her prompted her hand to rapidly swoop up and snatch Rachel's chin between its fingers.

Already panting, Rachel instantly batted the strained pale hand's grasp away, and forcefully at that, but it only resulted in Quinn adamantly snatching it again, and this time the taller, stronger, blonde squeezed on it with strength unknown even to herself, as she easily backed the small brunette up into the alley which shared a wall with the Breadstix establishment.

There Quinn pressured her free forearm against Rachel's sternum, and pressed the brunette back firm into the tattered discoloured bricks, looming over her with menace that most horror movies could only dream of achieving.

With their faces now only inches apart, the two girls sent whispers of warm breath out towards one another's lips, whilst holding almost murderous eye contact.

Quinn's glare was daring in the most threatening way, as was Rachel's.

It had been some time now since either girl had spoken, both of them recognizing the benefit of intimidation via silence, but Rachel intended to change that.

She had words for Quinn Fabray.

Words which she knew to be much more intimidating than mere silence.

"What are you going to do, Quinn?" the aspiring singer baited, her mouth barely able to form words due to the tight grip that the blonde still had on her chin. "Attempt to molest me again?"

A small but hostile tilt of the head from Quinn brought their foreheads together with an almost inaudible thud. "Shut up," Quinn warned, low, quiet, and ominous.

"What, would you like me to put up a fight like the last time? Would that perhaps help to heighten the thrill?"

Squeezing her eyes shut, Quinn drove her forehead further against Rachel's, and the back of the brunette's head met with the wall behind, strands of silk brown tangling in the debris that had been born from the cracks in the bricks.

"I said shut up," Quinn repeated, her tone an exact duplicate as before, save the small timbre of desperation that had now bled into it.

She'd just wanted to apologize, and now here she was - a slave to her ire - pinning Rachel against a wall with deplorable thoughts stampeding through her head.

"Either do something, or release me at once," Rachel told her, displaying not even the faintest modicum of evidence that she was intimidated.

Under different circumstances, Quinn might have been impressed by her former best friend's stoicism, but she hated that Rachel could just as well have been yawning right now when she, herself, was terrified.

"I said either do something, or release me _at once_, Quinn," Rachel reiterated a little louder.

Quinn applied even more pressure with her forehead in another attempt to make Rachel stand down. Their noses nudged and shoved at each other, pristine ivory flesh dragging forcefully over tan, as their nostrils puffed gusts of breath out to the other's top lip.

Despite the hostile events, something about being so close to Rachel was soothing to the former cheerleader. Rachel's smell, Rachel's unique breathing patterns, the smoothness of Rachel's nose against her own.

Rachel.

Then in what seemed like a bolt from the blue, at least to Rachel, Quinn whispered, "I was _just_ trying to say sorry," before slowly drawing back into her own space and grudgefully releasing Rachel's chin. "But you jumped all over me with that fucking attitude of yours."

With those words, Quinn ran her trembling hand through her hair, batted the creases out of her clothing, and walked away, leaving Rachel to consider the possibility that the blonde's apology just may have been sincere.

* * *

**Apologies for the length of this chapter, but I wanted this scene to stand in its own right. Hopefully you enjoyed it all the same? Many of you wanted quinn to work for it. Let the 'working' begin.  
**


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